Just read from a review site I frequent to hold on investing in Invex. At least till the 2nd week of August 2005 before you do anything.
Why?
He suspects Invex will run with the money. He also says that at least another person has expressed the same misgivings.
I'm in the black with Invex. I'm fine even if it goes.
If you're still keen on Invex, invest at your own risk, as I've blogged every so often.
This is a reeeeaaaal dramatic turn of events!
The crux: Karsten is closing Sunflower Seed - Temporary? Forever? http://www.sunflowerseed.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=239
He couldn't decide. So, how should I know?
What I do know, this is an honest guy in dilemma. He's tired and tempted, but his morality just wouldn't allow him to run away with the money.
I haven't checked the reactions to Karsten's sudden action yet, but I know this is just going to raise hell. Hopefully, by the time the dust is settled, Karsten and Sunflower Seed will come back and grow stronger.
Crossing my fingers.
It worked once. It will work again. :-)
Latest developments in Karsten's own words:
I will offer a refund for all deposits made 3 days before (==> 2005-07-26) on Field 02 and 03. Please send a Private message via the board software with the details about your deposits. Possible only for deposits from outside of your account.
See the posts here: http://www.sunflowerseed.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=224
Also, more changes to the field investments again here: http://www.sunflowerseed.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=218
I don't know what these mean so I've posted the question to Karsten: http://www.sunflowerseed.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=231Best for everyone invested in Sunflower Seed to monitor the forum themselves for the latest developments.
Sunflower Seed has just gone through a major overhaul of its "fields".
Gone are the high risk high return fields (2 & 3). You're left with low risk stable fields of 4 & 5. Not only that, all investments in fields 2 & 3 are shifted over to fields 4 & 5, and rates are adjusted as well.
You can read more about the changes over at the forum here: http://www.sunflowerseed.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=218
Do I start to panic?
No!
In fact, I applaud Karsten, the CEO and admin of Sunflower Seed, for taking such a bold and drastic action. It is a move to stablilize and ensure the longevity of the program. A move to bring the program to a status of "real" HYIP.
Sure I miss the high paying fields, sure I like to double my money in 2 months. Doesn't everybody just love for the goose to lay a golden egg everyday? But what if laying an egg everyday will kill the goose? Would you rather have a dead goose or one that lays a golden egg every week or month?
My choice is clear.
My only gripe is the short notice of the change. Karsten could have told us a week or a few days before hand. That would at least have given me time to react and manage my funds accordingly. For one thing, I probably would have taken out the fund I just rolled over instead of reinvesting it.
Overall though, thumbs up Karsten. Thumbs up to Sunflower Seed for a step nearer to becoming a "real" investment program.
Just got an email from Invex it's down for server upgrade.
Subject: Technical upgrade of the server, please be patient
We are upgrading the server and it will take up to an hour or so to be completed, thank you for your patience.
Invex Ltd.
Well, the last few times I got this type of message...
Crossing my fingers.
Ha! Found 2 more sites similar to GoldFXClub mentioned in my last blog:
EFXGold is better than GoldFXClub as far as I'm concern. It gives you $0.10 upon sign up, and another $0.90 on 1st deposit, making up the free $1 bonus. Actually this is how GoldFXClub works too. But depositing is where EFXGold gets better: You get a "kickback" of 5% - 10% on your investment!
So, with the minimum $1 investment, I got back: $0.10 sign up + $0.90 1st deposit + $0.05 (5% of $1) deposit "kickback" = $1.05 free bonuses.
Instant profit of $0.05!
If only e-gold didn't charge me $0.06 for receiving the fund.
No worry. I'll get it back from the daily interests soon. I hope.
The best yet is GoldGains: Instant $0.09 net profit! It was simple. I took the $0.10 sign up bonus, and paid the $0.01 e-gold fee. Now, if I could just find 99 more sites like GoldGains, and do what I just did...
Wait. No investment? No investment.
You get the 5% - 10% deposit "kickback" like EFXGold at GoldGains, but you'll only get the 50% free 1st deposit bonus for a spend of $20 or more. Plus my ever helpful assistant, Didi*, alerts me that many HYIP rating sites and forums blacklist GoldGains. So, no thanks it is then. No point risking even $1.
Cheap skate? All these signing up just for peanuts? Hey, I'm a simple man. I go for cheap thrill. Besides, like I said, if you could sign up with 99 more sites like these...
Don't under estimate the power of small accumulations.
GoldFXClub, EFXGold, GoldGains.
Those are my current "Hit & Run" list. Invest at your own risk, you ok with that?
* If you didn't know, my lovely assistant, Didi, does all the due diligence for me. ;-)
This is way cool. Get something for nothing at GoldFXClub...
... if you're not greedy!
The club offers you $1 free with your 1st deposit. You can withdraw the $1 bonus immediately with the bonus key you receive in your sign up email address.
And guess what's the minimum deposit amount? $1!
Get something ==> With $1 invested, you get paid 1% daily.
For nothing ==> You deposit $1. You withdraw $1. Do you pay anything? Nothing!
Fine. I admit. You're still short of $0.05. Curse the e-gold transaction fee.
Come on. This is still a good deal, right?
Craving for more free cash? Try depositing $500 to get $50, or $1,000 to get $100. And you get 2.05% and 2.50% daily too.
Be careful filling in the fields when you sign up though: Don't put your e-gold password without thinking at the password field just below the e-gold account field. They are asking for your password to access your GoldFXClub account, NOT your e-gold account. This is one common trick scam sites use to trick you. If you aren't care, next thing you know you'll be crying over a zero balance e-gold account.
Now, am I'm saying GoldFXClub is a scam? No, not at this moment. Only time can tell.
Just remember: You're playing in the HYIP field. Everything is not what it appears. It pays to cover your back.
This is long overdue.
As I said in my previous blog, I'm only declaring the death of PO-Trading now for sentimental sake.
So I can't retire with a POT of gold, but at least I managed to get a few gold coins. :-)
Sunflower Seed was under heavy DDOS attacks a couple of days back. The admin, Karsten sent out an email to say the site has temporarily been moved to:
Once you start playing in the high yield investment programs field, this is one advice you are definitely going to come across often:
Don't invest what you cannot afford to lose.
Good advice. I abide by it. Except I always find the exploration and explanation of this rule unclear or incomplete. Something is missing.
Exactly the reason I'm exploring this rule with you.
First, you must understand why we need the "don't invest what you cannot afford to lose" rule.
Simple. One single word:
Risk.
Surely you must know that there is risk involved investing in all these HYIP programs? If not, I seriously advise you to stop all your investment activities right now, and go read up all you can about HYIPs or go consult someone experienced in HYIP, like me. :-} :-P
Because you cannot be 100% sure what you read on the HYIP sites are true and that the HYIPs will keep their side of the bargain, the "don't-invest" rule is there to help protect you from losing "food" money.
Go to any financial consultant worth his salt. I bet you he'll tell you to take care of your basic survival needs like food, housing and transport before ever thinking of investment of any kind. Sound advice, right? When you need the cash to stay alive tomorrow, would you go spill it on an investment promising the sky 1 month down the road?
He won't stop there either. He'll then tell you to keep aside an emergency fund worth 3 - 6 months your average monthly expenses in case of... emergency, what else? You know, like out of job, sudden illness, etc. etc. Again, sound advice. Life is full of uncertainties so you must be prepared to some extent.
Do you know now "what you cannot afford to lose"?
That's right. They are the monies you need for survival and emergency. Don't use these funds for investment. Don't invest what you cannot afford to lose... financially. When you still have any money left over after all these, you can start accumulating those "what you can afford to lose" funds to play in the HYIPs.
And this is where many will stop when they explain the "don't invest what you cannot afford to lose" rule. In fact, many stop short of the emergency fund. Whichever it is, they normally just talk about the financial aspect of the rule.
But like I said from the start, I always find the explanation of this rule lacking in some ways. I personally consider at least one other aspect. Since I like to keep my blog short, I'll visit the rule next time.
For the time being, it's:
Don't invest what you cannot afford to lose... financially.
There you have it. For now.
I'm telling the truth! My posts are worth $10 if not more! I have proof. Fastmarket has given me bonus for posting in their forum. :)
Oh. Maybe I don't have proof. :( I'm not showing you my account, am I? Best you join the investment program, post a couple of posts in their forum and find out yourself.
I'm only happy to report to you that, so far, what Fastmarket says, Fastmarket delivers.
Someone put this as his signature at the TalkGold forum:
Life is the biggest ponzi. We need new children to keep it going. - atimco
Thought it interesting. :)
I came upon Paxmix in a review site I frequent. I did some due diligence and found generally good reivews about it. I was as close as clicking the "invest" button in its member area, before I decicded to check once more its latest rating.
Fate has it that I went checking at HYIPmonitor. And what did i see? Red face!
Drilled into details and saw 2 red (very bad) and 2 blue (bad) faces in total. 1 red + 1 blue each are just voted today, 20 Jul 2005! Reason for the last 2 bad votes? Fake votes.
Can't remember where I read it, but there were comments that HYIPmonitor is now the hot favorite of paid voters because of its popularity. So this shouldn't disturb me considering that many forums and rating sites give Paxmix the thumbs up.
Yet, I hesitated. I vaguely remember looking at the investment opportunity a while back but decided not to invest. Maybe I should just review my decision based on my likes and dislikes, again.
So,
3+ vs. 4-. About equal pluses and minues. Then I asked myself the one last crucial question:
Do I feel comfortable investing in Paxmix right at this point of time?
No!
That settles it. Pluses and minuses only give you the hard facts, the logical part of things. In the end, your emotion must align too.
I pulled out at the last minute. If you're still interested, please go ahead. Just remember you're investing in Paxmix at your own risk.
For that matter, you're joining all the programs I list here at your own risk.
A follow up on my referral commission from Invex.
I sent a support ticket querying about the commission last night. Didn't expect to receive a reply within 6 minutes. Here's the extract:
The referral commission is 2% of $20, so $0.40.
As we do not pay the cent$, it is written 0. But the $0.40 ARE there, if for example tomorrow you have a new referral, the total will count the today $0.40.
Cordially,
Kathy Nguyen & Oliver Beresford
Invex Ltd. Support
I was impressed: 6 minutes!
Still, I needed to clarify that means I can't withdraw my commission till it adds up to $1 or more. And the support told me I was right:
Yes, but you would like to withdraw $0.20 ? :)
Cordially,
Kathy Nguyen & Oliver Beresford
Invex Ltd. Support
$0.20? Where did that come from? Should be $0.40. Lovely though, support with a sense of humor.
I must say the efficient and friendly support team certainly boosts my confidence in Invex. And yes, that little mistake tells us they are human too.
I came across a post in a HYIP forum that goes like this:
"I have an account with a few hundred $ in it... Like clock work the interests are adding up."
S/he was responding to another poster having problems with his account. That's when I couldn't resist putting in a reply bearing the same title here:
"I've come to learn that in the HYIP world, withdrawal is the real test."
Many newbies in the HYIP play field get very excited to see the interests piling up in their online accounts. With each day goes by watching the balances grow, they dream bigger: driving that sport car, living in that big house, retiring early next year...
Hello, dreamers. I hate to burst your bubble, but:
Online HYIP account balances ≠ Cash on hand
Face it.
The control over the online balance is in the hands of the HYIP admin, not you. The online balance is no more than a figure generated by the HYIP script. If the admin wants it to be $100, then it's $100. If he likes $10,000 better, then $10,000 it shall be.
Come withdrawal time is when you test the integrity of the HYIP admin.
The minute the HYIP admin honors your withdrawal request to transfer the money into your e-gold account, the control of the cash is handed back to you. Then and only then does your HYIP account balance means something. Before a succesful transfer, no way you're smelling the cash should the admin deny you.
In the HYIP world, withdrawal is the real test.
Seems I spoke too soon.
I just got email confirmation I have 1 new referral each for MyFreeShares and Invex.
MyFreeShares checked out fine, but Invex doesn't tally. Might be that the database needs updating. Afterall, the confirmation from Invex was only less than an hour ago. Will at least give it a good night sleep before I go make noise.
So my feeling is correct:
Don't ever under estimate the impact of a simple action.
Good news, great news, best news!
Fastmarket finally welcomes a new admin, David, and he has been busy answering posts. He also confirms that the $10 posting bonus is under way!
I save you the trouble of popping into the Fastmarket forum by reproducing the announcement here:
Good news
Dear members,
I am the new admin of FM dept - you are welcome to call me anytime.
We'll start accepting check deposits on Monday, processing $10 bonus right now
Have an excellent day,
David
You can follow up on the thread here: https://forum.fastmarket.com/showthread.php?t=580
I feel so excited and so much better. Now, if only Fastmarket would tell us what happened.
There I was talking about referrals in my last blog, and an experience popped into my head I'm sharing with you now.
You know I invest in Sunflower Seed from my earlier blog, don't you?
Because I invested in the daily interest plan, I logged in the next day to peek at my balances. Surprise, surprise. I got referral bonuses from not 1, not 2, but 3 referrals!
That was quick, I thought. I had never been so good in getting referrals before. Since I had started advertising my referal link at the usual autosurf sites I joined, I put it down as a fluke and went over to FeederFund to check the balances. Casually I skipped over to my referral statistics.
37! My gosh! 37 referrals!
I had been with FeederFund for 3-4 months. The last referral check in early Jun 2005 was still a big fat 0.
37!<
A pleasant shock!
I raked my brain. What had I done right?
I didn't do nothing drastically different except I became active at Fastmarket forum in June 2005. And I put my referral links for FeederFund and Sunflower Seed in my forum signature.
That's it.
A simple act of adding your referral links in your forum signature can dramatically increase your referrals.
Before you go trigger happy filling up your forum signatures with all sorts of referral links, let me put this in perspective.
I have a few other links in there with FeederFund and Sunflower Seed. At last count, I got:
My analysis:
My analysis may or may not be correct, but my feeling is this:
Don't ever under estimate the impact of a simple action. It may just make or break you.
In case anyone feels that I'm blogging to get more referrals...
You are absolutely right! I'm not blogging my experience in HYIPs for fun. Not entirely anyway.
Sure I enjoy myself. You can tell by my putting up so many posts in so short a time. You should see my first blog. I got as far as 4 posts...
I'm passionate over HYIP. It's my kind of job. I just love it. I always got this thing over the investment thingie.
OTOH, let's be open about this.
If I can make some funds while having fun, why not? Why do you think we see all these blogs flooded with Google AdSense ads?
Ask yourself this: Why are you reading my blog?
Not for amusement alone I bet. Not while my blog heading says: HYIP - Help Yourself Into Profit.
You're here to pick my brain, to see what works for me and what doesn't, to find out what hot programs to try and to get me try yours. In short, you're here to make some money for yourself, aren't you?
There you have it. We're both on the same wavelength: To put some extra cash into our pockets. So, let us work together to create a win-win situation for our mutual benefits.
Cheers!
PS. You're welcome to suggest your favorite investment programs to me. For all you know you may surprise yourself with many more downlines.
Here's an interview with Renaud de la Taille, marketing director of Invex over at HYIP Navigator.
Two warnings in a row on a Friday?
Sorry folks. Hope I don't spoil your mood and turn this into a "wrong" weekend for anyone.
Practically everyone is singing praise about Fastmarket — me included earlier — right now.
I've high hope for Fastmarket to last at least till this year end in my blog, yet I'm cautioning you at this point in time.
It's perfectly all right to sign up with Fastmarket, but you may want to think twice before spending any money.
Why?
The support team at their forum hasn't been answering posts since Independence Day, 4 Jul 2005 or thereabout.
This is unusual. The support had been very responsive, answering mails within a day or two normally. Two weeks without a forum posting by the support? With some postings obvisously directed to the admin/support?
I don't know. Maybe the support is on a super-duper-long-Independency-Day vacation like I posted in their forum?
It is possible you know because that's what the admin of MyFreeShares are doinig. But at least they have the courtesy to tell us members so. Plus they're a husband+wife team running the show. You can't expect them to go on vacation without one another, can you?
With Fastmarket being a professionally run organization, you would expect them to do better than a mom & pop shop, won't you? A simple we-are-on-vacation annoucement would do just fine, even though I would expect someone to take over temporarily such an important function as customer support if the regular guy is on long vacation.
I have nothing else to go on except this. My compounding account still ticks daily. Other members and I still managed to withdraw our interests. Everything seems to work except for the absence of forum posting by the admin/support.
It may really turn out to be nothing. There may really be a logical reason.
BUT, if Fastmarket closes shop round the corner — I pray it won't 'cos I need another 3 months to recoup my initial spend — remember, you heard it from me here first. :)
This is no good. My crabby sense is tinkling like mad.
My POT of gold is cracked if not broken. PO-Trading (Profit-Optimization Trading) hasn't been paying coming to a week now.
They survived the DDoS attack earlier and are supposingly taking preventive actions. It's passed the deadline (13 Jul 2005 = 11 Jul 2005 + 2 days - See email extract below) and still no news from the admin or support. The last I heard from them is an email on 11 Jul 2005:
Dear Members,
I would like to inform you that we have completed the first stage of tests on our new anti-DDoS equipment and our website is available via HTTP at http://202.157.175.175
We will need 2 days more to finalize the setup of the equipment. After that our server will be available at http://www.po-trading.com
Now you can visit our website at a very good speed at http://202.157.175.175
Thank you for your trust.
With respect,
Michael Swafford,
Po-Trading Head Manager.
The links draw blank or don't work. The only one I found working is the forum: http://202.157.180.114/forum/index.php. This does no good 'cos the last update there by the admin is 8 Jul 2005, even earlier than the email above.
I've been with this program pretty much from its start back in Mar 2005. I was still green then - as if I'm seasoned ;-) now - in the HYIP play field. I fell in love with PO-Trading the moment I got into its member area. Didn't hestitate too much to plunge in my $.
And now...
My PO-T of gold is cracked.
I'll give it another week to declare it broken for sentimental sake.
Oh, don't worry about me. I've already gotten my initial spend plus some. It's just kind of sad to see a beloved old friend gone.
Invex is a queer one. If I told you it came from two words, what would you guess?
Investment Experts? Beeeep... You're out! It's Expat-Invest! That's right. Expat-Invest. I kid you not. I can't be wrong after watching the Flash animation umpteen times, can I?
Expat-Invest → Ex Inv → Inv Ex → Invex
Get the picture?
Why Expat-Invest? Maybe because they "are a team of successful expatriates all around the world... (having) a common interest for financial investments" as they say in their "About Us"?
The investment programs are no less interesting. The 3 main plans are similar in structure differing only in the usual time frames, investment amounts, and interest rates. They all pay out weekly and double your investment amount.
How to achieve 100% return with weekly interests? Invex innovates and uses progressive weekly interest rates.
Oooh... Clever, but still no big deal.
Then comes your withdrawal. This is the charming one. You can
Big deal, many HYIPs give you the same options. True. But do they reset the payout cycle?
Take the Silver Plan for example with a payout cycle of 6 weekly interest at 15-15-15-15-20-20%. Let's say you put in $100, didn't withdraw any interest, and you're now coming to W(eek)5 20% payout. You can
No need to explain about choice 3, is there?
If you choose 1, you get your $20 and the cycle is set back to W4. Come next week, you get your W5 $20 again.
If you choose 2, you get your $80 and the whole cycle starts again at W0 as if you just invested. Come next week, you get your W1 $15 from scratch.
Charming, isn't it?
All these show that Invex is a creative and intelligent bunch. So if they're really who they say they are, you can trust them to bring in big bucks for every investors. If they aren't, you can bet that they'll keep this gig going the longest time possible to bring in big bucks for themselves. Either way, to reap your own rewards, you got to jump on the bandwagon quick.
Like now.
HYIPs?
Cool! It's my kind of work.
Pump in money. Sit back. Relax. Go have fun. Come back. And voila! More cash for you to spend! Don't you just love it?
That's why I'm quite into it. And that's why I've this blog on the high yield investment programs scene.
HYIPs?
Dozo kochira e. (This way please.)
You know what?
Just 1 day after I blogged that no one got the $10 Fastmarket bonus, someone did come out screaming at the Fastmarket forum, "I got it!"
All right. I exaggerated. S/he just slipped it in quietly in one reply post.
I would have screamed the roof down if I were the first one. :^)
Sh... Want to know a secret?
Whoops! Sorry, I forgot I'm bound by T&C not to disclose anything.
Then again, I guess FeederFund is no big secret actually. If you play the HYIP game long enough, you will bump into it sooner or later.
As the name suggests, FeederFund feeds into other funds. But not just any funds. These are genuine online HYIPs requiring $1,000, $5,000, $20,000 or even more to enter. This fund makes it affordable for small investors like you and I with just $50 to enter each of these investment opportunities.
The admin is a group of professional investors, so they know their stuff. They thoroughly investigate every program before introducing it to the members. So you know you're getting quality investment programs.
What does the admin get out of it? Handling fee of course. Don't like the handling fee eating into your returns? No problem. You're welcome to invest direct with full links provided.
Are you tempted? Can't wait to put in your $50? Hold your horses!
Though free to join, FeederFund is a referral only Membership Club. You must have a referrer code to signup. So don't think you can just get rid of me. :)
Here's the code: "ykpffd". Don't lose it. Or simply click here.
The financial markets are moving so fast, you got to have a slow and steady hand to strike gold at the right moment.
Lucky us, Fastmarket is here to do the dirty job so we don't have to.
If you're used to the fast pace of online HYIPs, the interest rates here are nothing to rave about. What are 0.5% - 3.2% per trading day in the high yield world?
Still, no one is complaining. Everyone just seems to go: But this is the real thing, this is for the long haul!
Yeah, right. Haven't I heard that tune before?
Mind you, I'm not complaining. I'm happy with my definition of long haul for Fastmarket. Not to mention all those generous bonuses Fastmarket throws at you.
For starter, you get a nice $50 bonus to boot when you sign up. You need to accumulate your own $50 cash investment to unlock the $50 bonus though.
You also get a $10 bonus for posting in their forum. The official news is out that Fastmarket has started the processing, but no member has yet come out screaming, "I got it!" Maybe because it's being done manually?
Whatever. A bonus is a bonus is a bonus. If I get it, I get it. If I don't, shrug...
Anyway, Fastmarket started life from Jan 2005 if not earlier. I've high hope it will double its life span till date and give me my slow but steady cashflow without trouble.
Now you know how long is my long-HYIP-haul view.
What the heck has it got to do with HYIP?
Cipher. Naught. Nil. None. Zero. Zilch.
Wrong answer!
The program admin, Karsten, just can't stand another "'invest' or 'gold' any more... That's boring, uncreative and not very authentic."
But sunflower?
"I like sunflowers. They are golden, sunny - and a symbol of strength. You must plant seeds for them to grow, and when they do they grow very fast, standing tall and proud so that no one can ignore them."
Seems to me Sunflower Seed is going to last for a while, at least.
The garden has just opened on 21 Jun 2005, so the soil is still rich. A good time to go plant your seed (investment) into one of the fields (investment programs) and watch it grows and blossoms.
I already planted mine last week. The growing bud simply looks beautiful to me.
But, hey! We're talking about HYIP here, you know. So: Don't "plant" what you can't afford to lose!
